Chefs Knife

Cakes. They're delicious and we eat them at birthdays, weddings, and wakes (that aren't ours). In the splendorous world of culinary creations, there is no comestible that allows for such decorative flexibility as the cake. It can be simple, it can be complex. It can be amazing ...more

Deviled eggs are the classic American picnic dish, and Chef Hubert Keller has just the perfect recipe. Try it out! Ingredients 7 hard cooked eggs, completely cooled 3 tablespoons low-fat mayonnaise 1 tablespoon Dijon-style mustard 1/8 teaspoon Kosher salt 3-5 drops Tabasco® ...more

Alice Waters and The Green Kitchen So what, yes I admit it I am drawn to all things Alice Waters. So sautee me. A new discovery was made today while walking through my local bookstore. I found a sweet looking cookbook with Alice on the cover. Naturally I stopped. The item of ...more

House Café offers traditional American food with a heavy Mexican influence. The restaurant is located near Crescent Heights and Beverly Blvd, sandwiched between The Grove and The Beverly Hills Mall. We’ve (wife and I) visited this restaurant several times, here are our impress ...more

Listen, I'm not disparaging using really good knives—they can literally change your life, or at the very least, the way you work in the kitchen. However, there are many cutting and slicing tasks where you're better off using a sturdy pair of kitchen shears rather than a chef's ...more

Ask 100 chefs what the most important tool in their kitchen is, and you'll get 100 chefs saying the exact same thing: their set of knives. For home cooks and professional chefs alike, nothing is more important (or exciting) than a good knife. A good knife allows you to work mo ...more

When I was a senior in college, I shared a two-bedroom, one bathroom, microscopic kitchenette suite with three other girls. We all loved to bake and cook but were fully aware that we were in for a crowded year. We needed to use space efficiently, which meant carefully picking ...more

When I finally saved up some cash and got my first good chef's knife, I vowed to do everything by the book: clean it properly, hone it regularly, sharpen it faithfully, stand by it in sickness and in health, blah blah blabbity blah. Don't Miss: How to Tell When Your Chef's Kn ...more

When you have a parent who cooks—and has you act as sous chef—the kitchen automatically becomes a less intimidating place. In other words, kids who know their way around the kitchen will most likely become adults who cook for themselves, which also means that they'll eat more ...more

A good, sharp knife is a cook's best friend, which is why there's so much passionate debate about what kind you should get. Most enthusiastic home cooks opt for a stainless steel knife, but it turns out there's a different option that the pros favor, and that's carbon steel. T ...more

I have a lot of favorite kitchen tools. My seven-inch Global chef's knife is my baby. My pasta maker is my dance partner on any given Friday night. My girlfriend's stand mixer is my favorite toy in the apartment. But one of my favorite kitchen tools isn't so glamorous; it cos ...more

There are plenty of good reasons to always make sure your knife is as sharp as it can be. Obviously a honed blade cuts better, but you're also less likely to hurt yourself with it. And have you ever tried to slice a tomato with a dull knife? You may as well just skip the extra ...more

A good chef's knife is a thing of beauty and, with proper care, a joy forever. It can totally change the way you cook and turn even the dullest prep work into a glee-filled task. I once spent a happy, messy afternoon turning beef and beets into a credible Russian borscht with ...more

Tomatoes are the perfect barometer for kitchen knives and knife skills. If you've ever watched an infomercial for a set of knives, you've surely seen the enthusiastic host waxing about how well the knives cut tomatoes. And if you've ever had your knives sharpened, you've most ...more

At first glance, mandolines seem like such a good idea. After all, who wouldn't want a tool that can create picture-perfect and paper-thin slices of fruits and vegetables that would put even the sharpest chef's knife to shame? Your French fry game would never be the same. Sala ...more

One of my favorite things to do when I visit my parents is cook. Aside from the fact that I adore cooking with my mom, there's something comforting about returning to the kitchen that I first started playing in 20 years ago. Nearly all of the tools and appliances are the same ...more

There is no greater food to master than steak. If you can make a steak that's only marginally better than your neighborhood Applebee's, you'll still have friends waiting outside your door for steak night. And if you can make steak as good as that expensive gourmet steakhouse y ...more

Just like skinning a cat, there's more than one way to sharpen a knife (disclaimer: while I advocate sharpening your knives daily, please don't ever even consider skinning a cat). There's a stone, for an uber-sharp finish; the underside of a mug, for an awesome makeshift sharp ...more

Summer is the season to enjoy stone fruit: peaches, plums, nectarines, and apricots are all kissed by the sun and bursting with juicy flavor—which is all well and good when you're eating them as is. But trying to cut up soft, ripened stone fruit for jams, baked goods, chutney ...more

There are few kitchen tools as elusive as the oyster knife. Many people—even seafood lovers—don't own one. If you do own one, it probably gets used so infrequently that it gets sent to the very back of the shelf where it proceeds to get lost. Then you accidentally find the kni ...more

Grilled cheese is one of my favorite foods, ever. However, there are times in my life when I haven't had access to a full kitchen, and it's pretty hard to make a good grilled cheese sandwich without one. Don't Miss: Make Amazing Grilled Cheese Sandwiches Every Time Thankfull ...more

Knowing how to cut and slice raw meat is a skill all omnivorous cooks need in their arsenal. However, raw meat's limp and gelatinous character can be challenging to work with, especially when you're trying to slice it into symmetrical, attractive sections for a stir-fry or a s ...more

Most people have a few different knives in their kitchen drawers, but not everyone knows which one does what. Sometimes it seems easier to just grab whatever's clean, but choosing the right knife for what you're trying to do can actually make a pretty big difference. Your bre ...more

Fall is my favorite time of year, yet I cringe every time it begins. Why? Because it seems like every business is in a frenzy to start the Christmas shopping season the day after Halloween ends. For those of us who are fans of pumpkins, that's a buzzkill. It used to be that y ...more

There are myriad wrong ways to cut an onion, a few right ways to cut an onion (including this one)... but only one ultimate way to dice onions, and that's what I'll be sharing with you today. Dicing onions is a necessary evil when it comes to cooking. And I'm not even talking ...more

If you're careless and tend to leave your knives lying around or in the sink, chances are you've struggled with rusty blades. Water, as it turns out, is enemy number one when it comes to keeping your knives in mint condition. To be more specific, leaving water on them for a p ...more

Keeping apples or avocados from browning after being cut is impossible; within minutes of being exposed to air, these fruits (yes, avocado is a fruit) begin to brown. No matter what you try—adding lemon juice, keeping the pits in place, immediately sealing the produce in an ai ...more

There may be no kitchen appliance as controversial as the garlic press. Professional kitchens and many avid cooks despise it, while others staunchly defend it. On the one hand, Julia Child called it a "wonderful invention." On the other hand, Anthony Bourdain, in his must-rea ...more

Here's a not-so-well-kept secret about the food industry: retailers love to take your money. And one of the ways they do that is by dividing food into smaller sizes and charging more. Have you ever noticed that a container of precut, washed broccoli costs more than a head of b ...more

As the days get shorter and the weather cools down, I prepare to "hibernate." I add piles of blankets to my bed, wrap myself in layers of flannel, and—most importantly—eat as if I'm storing energy for winter. One of my favorite parts of my hibernation diet includes chips—home ...more

Believe it or not, you can put your money to use very efficiently in a new way: your credit or debit card can serve as a blade in desperate situations. (It might even be handier than dental floss as a brilliant substitution for specialized kitchen tools.) While I wouldn't take ...more

Cookbook author, celebrity chef, television personality, and former White House nuclear policy analyst Ina Garten is familiar to many as the queen of foolproof cooking. Also known as the Barefoot Contessa, Ina hones in on techniques and tips that make time in the kitchen far l ...more

My daughter moved into her first apartment last year, a huge rite of passage in any young person's life. With a mother and two grandmothers who are good cooks (to say the least, in the case of the latter), it's not surprising that she turned to us for some advice about how to ...more

Even if you're a good cook, sometimes home-cooked food just doesn't taste the same as it does in a restaurant. Of course, there are some utensils and appliances in a professional kitchen that the average person doesn't have access to, but it's not just about the tools. There ...more

Using spaghetti squash "noodles" for a healthy, low-carb meal seems like such a great idea, but as many of us know, turning this vegetable into a decent pasta facsimile usually has less-than-satisfying results. The usual method is to cut the squash lengthwise and roast, microw ...more

Essentially, the Anti-Griddle does exactly what its name promises: it turns things almost instantaneously cold when you drop them on its "grilling" surface. Unlike home methods of flash freezing, its staggeringly low temperatures (-30°F/-34.4°C) allows ingredients that normall ...more

Some nights, I'm a lazy cook and only want to chop one clove of garlic for my immediate needs instead of prepping a giant batch and freezing it the way I normally do. The only problem is if I'm already feeling that lazy, I really don't feel like dirtying a whole cutting board. ...more

Certain foods like garlic, onions, and shallots are food staples for a reason—they're unbelievably flavorful and cost very little. However, with their papery thin skins, they're also a pain to peel. We've already shown you how to peel a garlic clove more easily using the micr ...more

Vegetables are perhaps the most important part of our diets, but often times they're an absolute pain to prepare. Cleaning every fleck of dirt off of dozens of leafy greens takes ages, and eliminating the more fibrous parts of certain veggies can be extremely tedious. But whe ...more

Herbs, both fresh and dried, can be intimidating and mysterious to cooks. Just how much is too much? How do you prepare them? Food writer Mark Bittman says you should think of herbs as "teeny vegetables." To me, that means we should be using more herbs in our food, especially ...more

Ah, ginger. From stir fry to smoothies, ginger is a reliably sharp and refreshing flavor that adds zing to everything it touches. It may be a pain in the ass to remove the skin from ginger (or not), but the zest it brings to food is well worth the trouble. Don't Miss: How to B ...more

Pitting cherries is really annoying. There's no neat way to do it with a knife and, though they make a tool that does it, not everyone has space in their kitchen for a gadget that does so little. But fresh cherries are so delicious when they're in season... it's almost worth t ...more

A whole grilled pineapple is the perfect party dessert. It's beautiful, provides a natural centerpiece before you eat it, and can be sliced right on the spot and served with a dollop of ice cream. (Fresh mint leaves and a splash of liqueur on top taste pretty good, too.) Plus ...more

3D printing is getting closer and closer to becoming an everyday reality—which means revolutionary things are going to start happening for the home cook. Already there's a 3D printer that can produce edible tailored fruit and the Foodini, which can print full meals, including ...more

Meat tenderizers are absolutely necessary when dealing with leaner, tougher cuts like flank or skirt steaks. And while fruit like papaya, kiwi, and pineapple contain enzymes that can tenderize meat, the results can be hit-or-miss, and impart a fruity flavor that you may not al ...more

Don't believe what you read on the internet, especially today, when web giants like Amazon, Google, and the like showcase their otherworldly products and services. If they seem too good to be true, they probably are—but that doesn't make them any less fun. Keep checking back ...more

Coffee mugs: nothing proliferates more quickly in my kitchen cabinets. People are always handing them out as gifts or as swag, plus I always seem to find a vintage model or two at a garage sale that I'm compelled to buy. I used to do a yearly purge of my excess muggage, but it ...more

Mashed potatoes are a reliably tasty side dish, but they can definitely get a little boring sometimes. So if you're looking for that extra 'oomph' that goes beyond the classic butter and salt seasoning, try infusing your next batch with the flavor of baked potato skins. Don't ...more

When roast chicken is concerned, perfection is hard to attain. The reason for this is surprisingly simple: the light meat and the dark meat should be cooked to different temperatures. Ideally, chicken legs should be cooked to at least 170°F, while breasts should be cooked to ...more

Sushi aficionados and Simpsons fans alike know all about the joys of fugu. Known also as blowfish, it's reputed for being tasty if sliced from the correct part of the animal and many even say they experience a "fugu high" after eating the fish. Alas, if you have an unskilled c ...more

Recipes are invaluable to cooks who are just starting out, but what if you want to get to the next level? Then it's time you learn how to apply simple math to food. In other words, learn how to cook using ratios, not recipes. Fortunately, there's a great book by cookbook auth ...more